XII. HARDY AND MEREDITH
XIII. STEVENSON
XIV. THE AMERICAN CONTRIBUTION




CHAPTER I


FICTION AND THE NOVEL

All the world loves a story as it does a lover. It is small
wonder then that stories have been told since man walked erect
and long before transmitted records. Fiction, a conveniently
broad term to cover all manner of story-telling, is a hoary
thing and within historical limits we can but get a glimpse of
its activity. Because it is so diverse a thing, it may be
regarded in various ways: as a literary form, a social
manifestation, a comment upon life. Main emphasis in this book
is placed upon its recent development on English soil under the
more restrictive name of Novel; and it is the intention, in
tracing the work of representative novel writers, to show how
the Novel has become in some sort a special modern mode of
expression and of opinion, truly reflective of the Zeitgeist.

The social and human element in a literary phenomenon is what
gives general interest and includes it as part of the
culturgeschichte of a people. This interest is as far removed
from that of the literary specialist taken up with questions of